Yahoo taps NSA critic as chief security officer

Yahoo Inc has named well-known security researcher Alex Stamos as its chief information security officer, tapping a vocal critic of the U.S. government’s secret surveillance programs for the position.

Stamos was one of the primary organizers of TrustyCon, a gathering of prominent technology experts last month who had pulled out of the RSA security conference in San Francisco amid growing discord over some technology companies’ cooperation with U.S. intelligence-gathering efforts.